Automatic car-brake



y NITEDv STATES a PATENT OFFICE.-

cHanLns van" DUsEN, or New ALBANY, INDIANA, Assis-Non or ONE-HALF ,fro'Willmann Banvroenn, or LomsviLLn, KENTUCKY.

AUTOMATIC CAR-LBRAKE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No.7284,690, datedSeptember "11, 1883.

` Application man Juneau, ieee. (No moua.)

To aZZv whom it may. concern Be it known that I, k@interns VAN DUsnN,

a citizen of the United States, residing at New Albany, in the county ofFloyd and State of y 5 Indiana, haveginvented certain new and useful 5buffers, and to provide in this class of brakes" aninlprovedbrake-setting mechanism opera# ble upon the parting of any two of thecars in a train. Y-

' Vith these objects in view the invention so consists in thecombination and arrangement i of parts hereinafter spccificall y setforth and claimed.

In. the accompanying drawings, in the several figures of which likeparts are similarly designated, Figure 1 is a longitudinal centralsection of the ends of a railroad-car containing my improvements, theleft-hand or bottom end of said figure showing the buffer operatedbrake-setting mechanism only, and the righthand orupper showingthemechanisln for setting the brakes by the uncoupling of the cars. Fig.2 is a cross-section of the draft-timbers i of the car on the line a:.fr of Fig. 1, showing a modification. Fig. 3 is a top plan View oftheautomatic coupling devices for setting the brakes upon theaccidentalparting ofthe train;

Fig'. 4L is a side elevation on v one member. of

said device. Fig. 5 is a rear endv view of a slight modification of mybuffer-bar as applied 4o' to certain kinds oftenders, and Fig. 6represents in side elevation and bottom plan view the details of apreferred form of buifer.

' The body, bottom, draft-timbers, and trucks of arailWay-car may be andare here shown of ordinary construction to receive'my inven-` tion.Suitably supported in the sills or other frame-work ofthe ca:l,aboutcentrally thereof,`

' and preferably above the draw-heads,is a rod "or-bar, al, extendingthe length ofthe car and 5o `projecting'beyond the platforms at bothends.4

Uponl the ends of this bar are secured buffers b, of ordinary orpreferred construction. In

Fig. 6 I have shown a buffer with a flat contact-face, b'f, and in-'arecess beneath said face I have arranged a fork, b2, for use in holdingthe coupling-puin. The rod or ba'r a is provided With a toothed rack, c,and between said rack and a stationary part of thefframing is a spring,d, tending to keep said bar projected. A toothed wheel, e, meshing withthe rack of 60 the bar a, is mounted upon a shaft, j', having bearingsin and transversely of the draft-timbers g g, and a second and smallergear-wheel, 71'is` mounted upon a shaft, i, also borne by saiddraft-timbers, said gear-wheel h meshing 6 5 with the wheel c, and,being driven thereby. The end of the shaft i has arms j j, to whichbranches k k of the brakechain Z are secured. The brakechain Z' isconnected in any usual or suitable manner with the brake-shoeoper- 7,0ating mechanism. If it be desired to rotate the shaft z' more rapidlythan motion can be vobtained from a train of two gear-wheels, I

may place 'on the shaft j' another and larger gear-wheel, e', and setthe `gern-wheel It to 'one 75 side of the wheel e to mesh with saidwheel e, substantially as shown in Fig. 2.

The tender will be provided with a brakesetting-mechanism ofsubstantially the charac ter j ust described ,which mechanism willbe un-8O der the control of the engineer, and may consist of a steam-operatedpiston moving a series 'of levers or chains and pulleys arranged in anyobvious manner, to bear upon the buffer b and press it toward the rearof the tender, S5 whereby its rear buffer, borne by the bar a, willbearupon the front buffer of the iirstcar,

and retracting itfwill set in operation, through `its toothed rack-bara, the train of gearing on rfrom eitherend of the car'. "W hen thepressure roo upon the tender-buffer is removed, the springs cl are freeto operate, and by throwing out the rod or bar a bring its buffers -intonormal position and release the brakes.

The buffer provided with the fork for holding the coupling-pin is anessential element in my brake mechanism when the rod a and drawhead areso close as to prevent the pin being set inthehole therein, as usual. Itwill be re- /membered that ordinarily the pin is set in the hole andleans back toward the car, so that as the cars come together theentrance of the link into the draw-head and the concussion will serve tocause the pin to drop and engage the link. Now, where my buffer and rodeX- tend over the draw-head, as indicated in the drawings, and thus theyusually will, the coupling-pin h'ole is covered, and the pin hence couldnot be placed therein, so that it becomes necessary to employ a devicesuch as I have shown in order to ready placing in of the pin. It could-not lean against the buffer, and so must be held by it.y

By my construction I dispense with couplings for the series ofbrake-operating mechanisms in the cars composing a train, and yet makethem mutually dependent for operation. The ordinary hand-operatedmechanism for the brakes may be retained as an auxiliary to myautomatically-operated mechanism.

Where the construction of the rear end of the tender is such as topreclude the running the bar a straight through, it may be forked, as ata aQFg. 5, to encompass such obstruction, and the buffer supported 011said forked end by legs connected therewith, substantially as Yillustrated in said Fig. 5.

I have herein shown as a useful but not necessary adjunct to this 4formof brake-sety ting mechanism improved means for setting the brakes uponthe accidental uncoupling or, parting of the cars 'of a train, which Iwill now proceed to describe. t

m is a segmental lever, having its fulcrum n fast between or on thedraft-timbers, and arranged at each end of each carof a train, and, ifdesired, upon the tender. -One end of this lever has a link, o, engagingin any suitable manner the buffer-bara. The other end of thislever haspivoted to it a bar, p, terminating in a hook, q, and said bar may besuspended from the platform loosely by a chain, r. A guard, s, mountedupon the hook g to cover and uncover the entrance thereto, is connectedto rod t, with aV spring, u, iiXed at one end to said rod, and bearingagainst an ear on' the guard to keep said guard normally over the mouthof the hook q. The rod t is suitably guided upon the bar p, and'may bemade as a crank at its rear, and has a bearing, c, in the lever m at apoint nearer the fulcrum of said lever than the pivot of the bar p.These hooks and their guards will be in reverse po? sition on theopposite ends of each car, so that the hooks of meeting ends of adjacentcars will be in position to engage each other. As

the guards sl are free to be moved by their springs into their normalposition over the mouths of said hooks, whereby the engaged hooks willbe locked or retained in their engagement. In this position of thehooks,

should the ears begin to separate, the strain upon the bar p acts uponthe lower ends of the levers m, drawing them toward the adjacent ends oftheir respective cars and causing the movement of the upper ends of saidlevers 4in the opposite direction, whereby .the links or chains o aremade to act upon the buffer-rods a, `moving them so as to cause theirtoothed racks to engage the trains of geaising and set the brakes of theadjacent cars. This motion of the buffer rods is communicated to thebufferrods of the other cars to an extent sufficient to give theYengineer notice of the trouble. vA gravity pawl, w, engages notches yon the lever m to hold said lever in any position to which it may bebrought by the pull of the bar p,- hence the pawls throughout the trainwill hold the brakes, when once set, until Ipositively released. ,As thelevers m are moved kthe difference in the radii of the pivotal pointsofthe bars p and rodst will cause a gradual retraction of the rods t,and consequently the movement of the guardsrs, until said guards uncoverthe hooks and permit them to drop apart; but this can only occur whenthe brakes are fully set up. n

I have thus greatly simplified the construction of this class ofcar-brakes, dispensed with much costly gearing, and rendered the brakedirect acting.

I have confined my illustrations and description herein to a single formfor convenience merely; but it will be understood that many parts may bealtered in shape and form so long as their respective functions, hereinstated, are preserved.

Vl". In an automatic car-brake, a buffer-rod extending continuously fromone end of the car to the other, and supplied with buffers at each IOOIIO

end, combined with a toothed rack, a train of two or more gear-wheels, adouble-arm shaft driven by said gear-wheels, and a brakechain havingbranches connected 'separately' to the arms of the said double-armshaft, substantially as shown and described.

2. vThe combination, substantially as shown' and described, in anautomatic brake, of a movable rack-bar extending from end to endrjected, a shaft having two arms extendingfin different directionstherefrom, gearing connecting said shaft andv the rack-bar, and abrakechain connected to each of said arms,

whereby the .brakes are set 4when the buffer rack-bnr is moved fromeither end of the ear, as set forth.

3. rllhe combination, substantially as shown and described, with enauto1natie-brake-set ting mechanism comprising a buffer rack-barextending from end to end of theeirr, ,zt shaft having two armsextendinggl in different directions therefrom, :L br-.ike-ehnlineonneeted to said arms by branches from its body, and gearing betweenseid shaft and the rack-bar, of :t segmental lever connected looselywith but engngi ng sind buffer-lun, and provided with a hook having inspring-guard independently connected with said lever, to hold the hooksof adjacent ems in Contact, and to operate said lever upon the pullingAapart of uneoupled ears to set the brakes, and then disengage the hooks,'as set forth.

CH ARLES VAN DUSEN.

VVitneSSes:

NV. H. BERKELE, J No. K. FAULKNER, Jr.

It. is hereby certified that in Letters Patent No. 284,690, grantedSeptember Il, 1883, upon the application of Olla-ries Van Dilsen, of'New Albany, Indiana, for :in improvement, in Automatic Car-Brakes,errors appear in the printed speclcation requiring correction, asfollows: In line 37, page 1, the word on should read of at, end of line71, page 2, after the word hooks, the words (mdpcrmt the engagmumzt ofthe hooks should he inserted; and that the patent should be read withthese corrections therein to make it conform to the record of the caseinthe Patent Oce.

Signed, conntcrsigned, and sealed this 18th day of September, A. D.i883.

M. Il. JOSLYN, Actin-g Secretary of the Interior.

[SEAL] Couutcrsigncd:

E. M. MARBLE,

Co-rmniss-ion-crqf Patents.

